Valiant Hearts: The Great War made a huge splash at E3 2014 as one of the most interesting Indie-styled titles at the show but one that is coming from, and made by, a big-name developer. In this case Ubisoft.
Check out this extremely unique title in Valiant Hearts: The Great War’s E3 2014 Trailer.
Set in a unique and interesting backdrop, that of World War I circa 1914 to 1918, the game takes its inspiration from letters that soldiers wrote back to their families and loved ones during “The Great War”, with a plot revolving around four soldiers and a canine, each strangers to one another, who all help a young German soldier, the enemy, locate the love of his life.
The developers promise an intense story about Friendship, Survival and Sacrifice.
Here is an indepth look at 17 straight minutes of Valiant Hearts gameplay, the entirety of the E3 2014 demo!
Incredibly, all of the artwork in Valiant Hearts was originally drawn by ONE PERSON, who was working on it as a side-project. So even though it’s become the next Rayman Legends, it truly is an indie title and a labor of love at heart.
Valiant Hearts is a side-scrolling Adventure game with a focus on Puzzle Solving to advance, with swaths of action elements, along with a deep narrative, cutscenes around every corner, narration and lots of character development.
As you wander the area you are in, you’ll see speech bubbles appear above the heads of people and objects. This clues you in on what you must do to advance the story, or the object or Item or Collectable you need to advance. For example, your faithful companion dog may require a drink of water, so a waterbowl will appear above his head. It is then up to you to interact with various background objects and/or people to solve the riddle, in this case, filling his bowl with water from a nearby pipe by turning the valve handle.
Here’s a video of the developers talking about Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
One of the coolest aspects of Valiant Hearts however is the way the game makes use of real photographs and real letters actually written during World War I, thanks to a partnership with the French/Canadian documentary known as Apocalypse: World War I. All of the real-life photos have been recolored, giving you an eerie glimpse into the real-life people, places and emotions from The Great War, which is about to celebrate it’s 100th Anniversary.
Valiant Hearts: The Great War will be available soon digitally on both current and last-gen platforms, as well as PC, when it hits on June 25th 2014 for Xbox Live Arcade (Xbox One, Xbox 360), PlayStation Network (PS4, PS3) and PC (Steam, GoG, uPlay).
Here’s the Valiant Hearts: The Great War image gallery.
Click on any of these image thumbnails to see the full-size photos:
Valiant Heart: The Great War immediately impresses with it’s hand-drawn cinematic animation and highly stylized, artistic art direction and characters that gives the impression that you are, quite literally, playing through a cartoon or comic or animated film!
The art work is just spectacular and absolutely gorgeous. The game is actually being developed using the Rayman Legends engine, which is no surprise given how beautiful the artwork in that game was. This game looks awesome! I can’t wait to play it. Although it bugs me a bit that the in-game graphics remind me of Scribblenauts lol.